“Say, ‘I broke the window.’ ” This was my dad’s calm response to each of my many excuses. I was desperately trying to explain why it was not my fault that the baseball I had thrown had broken the back window. Dad quietly persisted, however, until I had exhausted all the defenses that my ten-year-old imagination could come up with. 

After Adam and Eve sinned, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent, yet they all made their own choices and all were accountable to God for those choices. After King Saul was commanded, “Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have” (1 Samuel 15:3), he spared not only the choicest livestock but also King Agag. Samuel confronted him for his disobedience, but Saul made this excuse: “The people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God” (1 Samuel 15:15). 

President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that stated, “The Buck Stops Here.” He was expressing an unusual commitment to accept responsibility for the consequences of his political decisions, even the unpopular ones, without trying to shift the blame to others. Perhaps a similar motto in our homes would help us remember the seriousness of each decision that we make and of our ultimate accountability for the consequences. 

God’s Word tells us that “there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed” (Luke 12:2). When we make wrong choices and humbly accept accountability for them, we have the Lord’s assurance that “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). 

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Proverbs 28:13 

~ Pete Lewis